Neil Parish revealed the peculiar response his wife has to his behaviour during a bizarre interview on Monday.

Parish, who stood down as the Tory MP for Tiverton and Homerton in April, caused a national outcry when colleagues claimed he watched porn in the Commons twice.

He later said he was actually looking for tractors when he came across porn the first time, meaning the scandal quickly became known “tractor porn”.

He initially refused to quit even after losing the whip but changed his mind as the public response grew louder.

Recounting his messy departure from parliament, Parish told ITV’s Lorraine Kelly that it was his “hugely supportive” wife who had persuaded him to leave his post.

“She knows I’m no angel – in fact she chases me around the kitchen going, ‘snipper-snap’ knowing full well which part of my anatomy she’s after.”

Looking slightly taken aback, Lorraine said: “OK.”

“She knows what I’m like,” he added.

Lorraine continued: “You must have had to have a very awkward conversation with your wife. You’ve said she knows what you’re like, she accepts that I guess, but that conversation must have been very difficult.”

He said that his wife has supported him throughout his career in Westminster, as “she’s done so much with me.”

“So naturally, on the morning I decided to resign, it was her advice I took, it was my children, my son and daughter, both very sound advice, and in the end, do you twist and turn, do you tell lots of fibs, or do you go cleanly?

“And I decided to go cleanly,” he explained.

In an interview with The Times in April, Parish’s wife, Sue Parish, said she was stunned when she first found out what her husband had been up to.

She said: “It was all very embarrassing. My breath was taken away, frankly.”

She also said he had never done anything like that before, explaining: “No. He’s quite a normal guy, really. He’s a lovely person. It’s just so stupid.”

She suggested the issue was not going to come between them in their marriage as well, adding: “You’ve got to carry on, haven’t you?”

Back on Lorraine, Parish was asked he felt Johnson should take responsibility for the problems emerging within his own party – Parish is just one of several Tory MPs who has found themselves at the centre of fresh sleaze allegations over the last six months.

“[Johnson is] good on the big things, the vaccines, Ukraine and seeing down the murderous Russians,” the former MP said. “But it’s about trust and integrity.”

Parish highlighted the inconsistencies around what Johnson knew about the latest sleaze claims surrounding former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher.

Pincher has been accused of sexual misconduct, claims which Johnson allegedly knew about before appointing him to government in February this year.

Parish, who pushed for Pincher to have the whip removed on Friday, asked: “Why tell a fib when you know 24 hours later it’s going to be refuted?”